http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=29359
I'm about to give up. It's been several times that I made it to Rainbow or Heiankyou and crashed my run there due to pure fear and lack of resources. If someone feels like evaluating my strategy, I'm grateful. Even if I make it through that godforsaken stage in good shape and basically perfect half of the Nue battle (Chimera's horribly long duration tends to get me clipped though), I'm still murdered by the later half because I only manage to get there in one out of five to over ten restarts and don't feel like wasting that chance for practice.
If there's one stage that needs Spell Practice I can think of, it's this one. And to add insult to injury, if it was Yukari or Mokou or even Suwako I would still have tons of resources with that few misses, but hell no, that's my reward for putting up with that horrible UFO system.
Going through the replay:
-Your UFO route through the stage could use some serious work. I recommend looking at a replay of someone's clear to find a better route through the stage. For reference, here is the route that I planned out as I was first trying to clear the Extra:
o Pick up red, blue, green -> Rainbow -> pick up 2 reds
o Pick up third red from "rain" fairies -> Red UFO -> Pick up green
o Pick up 2 greens -> Green UFO -> Pick up green
o Pick up 2 greens -> Green UFO -> pick up red
o Pick up 2 reds -> Red UFO -> Pick up whatever
o Kogasa
o Pick up red, blue, green -> Rainbow UFO -> pick up 2 greens
o Pick up one of two greens -> Green UFO -> Pick up green and other
o Pick up final green -> Green UFO
o In a perfect run you should enter Nue with: 4 lives, 7 1/3 bombs
-For the difficult section of the stage after Kogasa (where you died in the replay), I recommend NOT grabbing UFOs there and just focusing on survival. It'll cut down on your pain by a lot. You can see how I do it
here.-You're doing Nue's cards from Green UFO onwards in a really weird/bad way. If you learn how to do them properly, you won't have as difficult of a time on Nue. You can see my strategies for those cards in my perfect run
here. I've also included my written notes below on the cards if that helps.
Green UFOThis one is yet another decently tricky pattern, but not too bad once you figure it out. The lasers fired by the green guys are static, so you can actually sit in the same vertical space on the screen every time and get through the lasers pretty easily. You also have a pretty big space inside the lasers to dodge the green bullets too, so as long as you don't panic and overadjust, you won't hit the lasers at all. If you want to kill Nue quickly, you'll want to mostly sit in the second-to-last space provided on either side.
If you really have trouble with this card, you can also kill the green UFOs before they even get a chance to fire the lasers. Basically just follow the green UFO you want to kill across the screen, sit under it, and watch it blow up before it has a chance to fire out the laser. You can actually see me do it several times by accident in the video. I think you need full power for this, and every shot type except probably ReimuB and SanaeA (maybe SanaeB too) can do this. This way you'll have a much bigger space to dodge the green bullets in. Of course, this method will also make the card take longer.
Undefined DarknessYou really, really want to have full or near full power coming into this one. Coming into this with 2 or less power makes this one really hard. So this card basically involves Nue chasing you around the screen while also spawning bullets from inside the black clouds that she forms. She tracks your position a little bit
after you hear the sound clip fully play out, so be careful of that. She also speeds up as the card goes on, so you really, really want to clear this one quickly.
The strategy is to just keep Nue at the top of the screen for as long as possible, and then lead her down one of the sides when you can't keep it up anymore. You can also lead her down the middle, but half of the bullets don't spawn when you do it on the sides, so you'll have an easier time there. There isn't much strategy to it other than that if you're at near full power.
If you're at lower power, you actually may not be able to clear the pattern before Nue starts moving a bit too fast to handle. In that case, you'll want to go in a triangle formation around the middle of the screen after the above strategy, and hitting her whenever you end up underneath her. It might get a little hairy, but it's manageable as long as you don't panic. The best strategy is to just come into this with high power though.
Rainbow UFOAside from Nue's final card, this is probably the toughest pattern in Nue's arsenal. The key here is to try to kill the rainbow UFOs before they reach the bottom of the screen. That way you won't have to deal with as many bullets. Unfortunately that's somewhat difficult as the UFOs spawn in random locations, so you have to move around quite a bit to get them. Even still, killing them quickly enough is really hard with MarisaB and near imposible with ReimuB. Not too bad with everyone else though. If you can kill them, just dodge the remaining bullets manually.
If you can't kill them, then you're just going to have to perform some pretty tight dodges to get out safely. This card will never wall you, but you will need good precision. Ideally you'll want to stay around one side of the arena. That way, you'll keep Nue around your position and you'll always be ready to kill a UFO when they spawn.
Nue's SurvivalI think the strategy for it comes out better in motion, so watch the videos for the exact pattern to move in for the first two sections. In the very last part of the card, especially near the end, it can get very tight, and all you can really do then is either be really good at reading the pattern (what I do) or you can also move in the same way that you do for the rest of the card, just tighter. Note that the pattern that the bullets move in is always the same, but more clusters of bullets are added as time ticks down. It's still a fairly tricky dodge at the end there.
-Most importantly, take a break if you get really frustrated. Doing most things, including playing shmups, while frustrated/angry will generally yield poor results.
